


Eat from the tree

by waxing_crescent



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-19 12:20:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29999241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waxing_crescent/pseuds/waxing_crescent
Summary: “And you shall be as Gods,”said his soul. “We will never be as Gods, won’t we?”
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Kudos: 14





	Eat from the tree

This is a human soul, said the Metatron.

A human soul.

Just like that.

Outside, for everyone to see, to touch, to harm, to know, to love. Open to the whole world.

You will get one, too, said the Metatron.

It hurt, to do that. Like he was separated with a part of his — a limb, a heart.

A soul.

They were almost unbearably close, back then. It hurt a great deal to part at even a length of an arm. It became easier as years — decades, centuries, millennia — went by.

They sat near the gates, watching Adam and Eve — and their souls, nameless, shifting, unafraid. They had nothing to be afraid of, back then.

There was a tree in the Garden.

God said — this is a tree of knowledge. Eat of it, and you will know of good and evil.

He asked — why shall we not let them, then?

God didn’t answer. Serpent got there first.

He gave his sword away.

His soul nestled at his chest — a small, warm thing, hiding from the rain. He hid the serpent from the rain, too.

The serpent didn’t have a soul back then.

×

“Do you know what it means?” he heard kids talking, and went to check, because kids, more often than not, meant trouble. “When your daemon Settles?”

“Of course,” the girl with short brown hair was checking on the comic books in the kids' section. He had to get one, after the whole… affair. Well, not _had_ had to, but— it felt right to do it. Adam would’ve approved of it, anyway. “It means that you’d grown up.”

“That’s not true,” said the boy, who kept his hands off the books. “My dad told me. It’s in the Bible.”

“I’ve read the Bible.” The girl picked another tome from the shelf. “There’s nothing in it about that.”

The boy lifted one finger up. “ _And you shall be as Gods_ ,” he cited, imitating someone — probably his father. “ _Knowing good and evil_. That’s what it's about.”

“Pfft!”

After that he had to lead them to the doors, because they started to be— Crowley would’ve said _themselves_ , but honestly, they could be themselves outside of his shop just perfectly fine. Their daemons, shifting into small dogs, scurried after them, tails wagging. He watched them go with a strange feeling in his heart.

His soul sat on his shoulder, touched his cheek. It was an owl, as they decided some time ago. Books, owl, wisdom, all that.

“And you shall be as Gods,” said his soul. “We will never be as Gods, won’t we?”

“No,” said Aziraphale and closed the door.

The boy’s father was right, he thought, checking for new emails. There were none. Knowing good and evil. That’s what it was about. Eating from the tree.

He wondered how it felt, for a second. Nothing good would come of it, he told himself.

Besides, the tree was gone.

Even if the Garden was still there.

He thought of Crowley, as he often did when he thought of the Garden, and the day went better after that. His soul fell asleep on his lap, purring.

×

You can’t touch other people’s daemons. It is taboo. Everyone knew that.

And, as taboo, it was learnt. Not innate, whatever the scholars were on about.

He remembers the first time he touched Aziraphale’s soul.

It was a miserable, rainy day — predecessor to many equally miserable, rainy days to come. Not a Great Flood, not yet, but close enough. Crowley wade through the mud, longing for the time when people would invent waterproof footwear. Alas, that time was centuries away.

He found the angel sitting on the knocked down tree. The tree looked as miserable as Crowley felt. The angel’s soul was nowhere to be seen.

 _His_ soul coiled around his waist under the clothes, half-asleep, half-lost to the world.

“Hi,” he said, coming closer.

Aziraphale looked at him and shifted to the side, letting him sit on the dry spot. Crowley tried to curl himself in the most ball-like shape as it was possible, which made the angel smile. He turned to Crowley, probably to say something, and his soul leaped at him from the bushes.

At him — and then at Crowley, bristling about how Aziraphale’s clothes were impossibly wet. Crowley froze, looking at the pine marten trying to nest between his armpit and his knee (his almost-ball-shaped abilities were getting better lately).

“That’s okay,” said the angel, who probably noticed something in Crowley's face.

Pine martens, as it turned out, had really nice fur.

He tried not to think too hard about it, and failed miserably.

×

Aziraphale closed the shop, turned off his PC (that was not _ancient_ , thank you very much, and worked properly, unlike Crowley’s modern laptop that had an unfortunate tendency to connect to Hell’s radio of all things from time to time) and went to bed.

He didn’t _need_ to sleep, of course. He didn’t sleep, but it was nice — to lay down on something soft, with his boots off, and read something.

It was nice to cuddle with Crowley, too.

Crowley was asleep and lost to the world. His soul, on the contrary, was wide awake. He watched the small garden snake moving away from the spare pillow, and sat down at the edge of the bed, taking his socks off.

When he settled down with the book, Crowley’s soul slithered back up to lay on his chest. He stroked smooth scales, absently, feeling small heart beating. _His_ soul lay in the foot of the bed, a steady, heavy weight. It shifted when they were walking the stairs.

“He doesn’t get nightmares when we are like this,” said Crowley’s soul to him once.

“Does he have them often?” he asked, because it was worrying. The whole— concept of the nightmares was worrying, and one of the reasons why he didn’t sleep. Crowley had always been better with taking risks than him, and, as it turned out, worse with dealing with the results.

“Often enough.”

They never talked about it again, but Crowley started to come to his shop more often.

He thought of moving out, sometimes. London was getting quite stuffy lately. And Crowley needed some space to himself, the poor dear. This co-existence in the small bookshop wouldn't end nicely, if they went on like this, in Aziraphale's opinion. The bookshop was _his_ ; they needed the place they could call _their_ own.

Crowley turned around in his sleep, pressing his face to Aziraphale’s neck. Aziraphale had to curl one arm around his shoulders to help him stay.

It was nice.

He wondered what Crowley would say if he offered this to him earlier, and then thought better of it. If he was to remember every single time he wished he’d done something different — well then, it would take a lot of time he’d rather use on something better. Like letting Crowley sleep and breathe evenly in his neck, and letting Crowley’s soul eventually doze off on his chest.

He thought of cherishing a snake in one’s bosom and huffed a short laugh.

He'd gladly cherish _this_ snake, whatever Heaven had to say about it.

×

People say — it’s like missing a step on the stairs. A short fall — not real, just a feeling of it, and you wake up.

That’s what people say.

Crowley isn’t _people_. He doesn’t wake up.

He misses the step, and falls down, down, down, and never stops falling. There’s nothing else in it — just this feeling of an endless, ceaseless fall, ever and always. He doesn’t know what scares him so much.

Unless he forgets something every time he wakes up, and isn’t _that_ a nice thought to have.

His awakenings are almost always the same — he opens his eyes and doesn’t blink, and tries to breathe in and out. His soul shifts into something soft — sometimes big, sometimes small — and lays next to him. They don’t talk.

That is, until they do.

“You should go to him,” says his soul. “It will be easier that way.”

“ _What_ will be easier?” he asks, and doesn’t get an answer.

It starts like this — with him walking in the angel’s bookshop. He brings his own drink, sometimes. They sit on the sofa, their souls somewhere else — if they’re touching, Crowley has no way of knowing that. He knows that _humans_ know.

He doesn’t ask _why_. He’s sure he already knows the answer anyway.

Aziraphale lets him stay for night, once. He has a bed — a nice bed, at that. Big enough for two, and Crowley wakes up the next morning, realizing two things: that he doesn’t want to go and that he wants Aziraphale to be here. 

It works out, in the end.

He wakes up one day with the angel next to him. It’s way less awkward that he thought it would be, and not a one-time thing either. 

Next time he goes to sleep, he presses his face to the angel’s neck and doesn’t miss the step.


End file.
